


putri-kameshti

by weaslayyy



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 04:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17134559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/pseuds/weaslayyy
Summary: an invitation is sent to rajmata sivagami in mahishmati, heralding the upcoming coronation of the new kuntalan sovereign, his sister to e crowned heir at his side. in one universe, sivagami sends a knife and fine silk shawl. in another, she finds herself in attendance.





	putri-kameshti

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/gifts).



“Who are you?”

Sivagami, unaccustomed to being asked such a question turns at the voice and finds the face of a young girl. Her clothes are of a fine silk, but she lacks the heavy jewels that even Sivagami’s sons might have been coaxed into wearing for such an occasion, the crowning of Kuntala’s new sovereign. Strangely, what she _does_ have is a knife, scabbard hanging off a decorative belt at her waist.

Sivagami smiles. She too was once a merchant’s daughter, lingering on feast days in the shadows of a palace where she did not quite belong. “I am Sivagami,” she says gently. “Queen Mother of Mahishmati.”

The girl’s eyes widen. “Are you really?” Sivagami feels a pang somewhere in her chest and finds herself thinking of her sons.

“Yes of course,” she says, “And who are you?”

The girl blinks, still frozen in her awe. Sivagami looks around and sees that they are quite alone, sees that there are some steps only a few steps to her left and makes a decision. She grabs the girls hand and walks them, bringing them both to sit against one of the marble pillars that make up the Kuntalan palace. It is, Sivagami knows, an undignified position for a Queen Regent to find herself in outside of her own private apartments, but it has been less than a month since her sons left for the gurukulam and Sivagami misses motherhood.

She keeps the girl’s hand clasped firmly in her own. The girl’s bangles -- what few that she wears -- shift slightly before the girl quickly moves them back in place, but not before revealing a set of what Sivagami recognizes with some shock as bow scars. She has only seen such on Kattapa.

“Have you eaten?” Sivagami asks deliberately, mulling over the image of this strange child at her side.

The girl blinks, shaking her head so that her two braids shake slightly before looking up to meet Sivagami’s eyes. She nods.

Sivagami smiles. “Good. What was your favorite?”

The girl’s own lips curl upwards in response, any tension at having her scars seen rolling off her shoulders at the memory of her favorite food. “The sardine fry. Do you like fish?”

Sivagami remembers when her father’s men would return from ports unknown, bringing back gold and jewels and fish that was always so difficult to find in landlocked Mahishmati. She too enjoyed the Kuntalan spread, even if the fish of the river tastes different from that of the sea.

“Yes,” she admits, “but I don’t get to eat much of it in Mahishmati. Have you learned how to cook it?”

The girl wrinkles her nose, and that is enough answer for Sivagami. “Your poor mother must be at her wit’s end,” she laughs, “I know mine was when she tried to teach me.”

The girl’s face falls, slightly, but there is some curiosity in her tone when the girl next speaks, before Sivagami can try to apologize for what it is she must have said in offense. She too remembers being young and proud, and over-sensitive when confronted with her failure in many of the womens’ arts.

“My mother is dead,” the girl says shortly, suddenly sounding much older. Sivagami’s heart clenches. “She has been for years. That is why my brother is taking the throne.”

Taking the throne? “You mean to say that you are the Princess?” Sivagami frowns, trying to remember the new King’s younger sister from the crowning. She had stood to his left, had been crowned herself immediately after as his heir, the Crown Princess who might rule in his absence.

They had looked so young, and all Sivagami had seen were her own children safe in the ashram, allowed their youth because Sivagami lived -- it was lucky that the Kuntalan crown was a turban, easily adjusted to the small head of its new sovereign. Its Mahishmati counterpart would have swallowed either of her sons, a physical sign of the ill fit of a kingdom on the shoulders of such youth.

The girl lifts up her chin, just slightly, and it is only then that Sivagami knows for certain -- and there is something to this girl, with her knife and bow scars, being heir and sworn protector of a Kuntala ravaged by bandits. “Yes of course,” the Princess says, a mirror of Sivagami herself just moments before. Her face twists then, just slightly with doubt. “Do I not look it? I know I shouldn’t have taken off all my necklaces, but everything was just so heavy I couldn’t bear it!”

Sivagami feels an ache, sudden and sharp -- when she looks at the girl in front of her she sees her children, but more than that, in the young Princess’ doubt Sivagami sees herself. Her left hand, the one not still clasping the young Princess’ hand, rises to cup the girl’s cheek. It is strange, she thinks even as her hand moves -- Sivagami, outside of her two children, was never given to physical displays of affection. “You are as you should be,” she says, watching how such simple words light up the girl’s face.

“Crown Princess,” someone calls out, and the girl straightens. “Devasena, your brother is looking for you!” Devasena’s hand slips out of Sivagami’s grasp and Sivagami wonders for one wild moment why it feels like a part of her heart leaves as well.

Weeks pass in Mahishmati, letters sent to and received from Bhalla and Baahu who seem to have resigned themselves to and rejoice in the freedom of the ashram respectively. Still, Sivagami does not forget the girl she spent no more than twenty minutes with, the Princess Devasena with her knife and bow scars, dead parents and too-young older brother on the throne of a bandit ravaged land. The girl who dared ask the Queen Regent who she was, who asked if she liked fish, who asked if she looked the part of a title that Sivagami has not conferred on her own sons for fear that they could not bear its burden.

“Minister,” Sivagami calls out, only the vaguest outlines of a plan forming in her mind. “I wish to send a letter to Kuntala.”

After all, Sivagami had always wanted a daughter.   


**Author's Note:**

> avani!!!!!!!!! i know this is super short but its clearly only the beginning of what i PROMISE will be a much longer piece. baahu and bhalla are conveniently shoved away and sivagami is going to take devasena on as her ward/daughter and .... i have no idea what happens after that tbh but i'll figure it out i swear!!!
> 
> happy christmas <3 <3 <3


End file.
